A Posse of Princesses (10 page)

She kept walking, hoping she’d discover the
plays, when she was startled by a voice.

“May I help you find something, my lady?”

A girl her own age, dressed in scribe garb,
stood politely just behind her elbow.

“I’m looking for plays,” Rhis said.

“Across that way.” The girl pointed to the
opposite side of the room.

Rhis murmured a word of thanks as she looked
down. The table was covered with sheets of creamy paper, book
paper, and ink and good pens. Immediately in front of her lay a
sheet neatly written over, and next to it a book with an unfamiliar
script.

“Will Prince Lios be reading these books once
you translate them?” she asked.

The girl smiled. “He’s already read them, my
lady. It was he who chose them. We’re translating them for people
here—now and in future.”

How many languages did he speak? Rhis
wondered. But she didn’t ask. It felt too much like gossip, and all
the scribes were looking at her. Waiting in polite patience to get
back to their task.

“Thank you,” she said, and moved round the
table to where the plays were located.

There again she was daunted by the vast
number, so she picked three at random, and carried them out,
intending to find a comfortable spot and read.

She walked through the main gathering room,
where everyone seemed in a subdued mood. Not that many had come
downstairs. The people sat in small groups, either talking or
eating as the rain thrummed against the long bank of windows. No
one was on the terrace, not even Taniva.

Where was Taniva? Rhis didn’t think the
highland princess the sort to hole up in her room. Then she
remembered something about sword fighting, and wondered if the more
restless members of the company were all somewhere bashing and
clashing steel together.

A quiet laugh drew her attention. Two scribes
sat with two girls Rhis had not yet met. One of the scribes was
Dandiar, the other a fellow with long pale hair who seemed to be
telling a story.

Rhis passed them by, exchanged a quick smile
with Dandiar, then continued on to her room, where she could curl
up on her bed. She read until Shera banged on her door and demanded
she get ready for dinner.

Shera and Carithe bustled off to a corner,
whispering and giggling. Mindful of Lios’s rule about dinner, Rhis
sat down at a table with three new people. She soon discovered that
the girl and boy with hair the color of mahogany were cousins. They
had made friends recently with the other fellow, who had a head
full of bright red curls. This boy sat at Rhis’s left.

Though they welcomed Rhis with a friendly
enough manner, it was soon evident that this was going to be a
boring meal. All they talked about was horses. Raising, trading,
types, costs, saddles, and racing. Rhis pretended to listen,
keeping her attention on her plate. She did not want to be seen
searching around for Lios, and she was glad not to have to see
Vors.

“Eugh, there she goes,” the dark-haired boy
muttered.

Four quick looks as Iardith crossed the room,
her arm linked through Lios’. Rhis looked at that shining cape of
black hair drifting against the princess’s skirts, and sighed. If
she wore hers loose like that, it would tangle into unsightly knots
and straggles in no time.

Iardith sat down with Lios at one of the
waterfall tables, and then—with perfect poise—beckoned to two of
her particular crowd. Obviously she didn’t have to bother with the
rule about mixing around.

But just as Rhis was fighting against a sharp
pang of envy at the Perfect Princess’s self-possession, the
horse-mad girl said, “I wouldn’t be her for all the beauty in the
world.”

Rhis looked across the table, startled.
Except for her rich mahogany curls like a cloud round her head, the
horse-mad girl was not beautiful. She wrinkled her nose at Iardith
and Lios.

“Why?” Rhis asked.

The girl blushed deeply.

“There you go again, Moret,” her cousin
muttered, rolling his eyes.

“But it’s true,” Moret replied, crossing her
arms. And to Rhis, “You don’t know the king of Arpalon, do
you?”

Rhis shook her head. She suspected it was one
of those questions no one expects an answer to, but she said,
hoping for more information, “My father has a quarrel on with him,
so I know nothing about Arpalon.”

“
Everyone
has a quarrel on with the
king of Arpalon,” Moret said in a low, grim voice. “Or rather, he
keeps the quarrels going. He’s had my mother exiled to our estate
for nearly ten years. I really didn’t think I was going to get to
come here at all.”

“You aren’t here,” the cousin said, grinning.
“You’re visiting me.”

Moret laughed, patted his hand, and then said
to Rhis, “Iardith might be the sourest pickle of a princess who
ever walked this floor, but that’s because the court of Arpalon is
pure vinegar. Her father made it very,
very
clear that if
she doesn’t come back with a royal crown, she can’t come back at
all.”

The next morning dawned clear and pretty.
Rhis, staring happily out her window at the bright blue sky, said
to Shera, “Oh, I just have to take a walk.”

“Now?” Shera asked, looking surprised.

“Yes.” Rhis opened the window wide and
breathed in the scent of flowers. “In Nym, sunshine is rare enough
that we don’t waste it. Not that we can grow even half the flowers
I’ve just glimpsed here. I’ve never smelled that before, those
pretty scents. No wonder people write poetry about flowers! Go on—I
don’t mind skipping breakfast. I’ll join you in the library when
I’m done.”

Shera said, “The garden is beautiful here.”
But she said it in the voice of compromise. Rhis suspected that the
blooms she herself found so charming were common in Gensam. Then
Shera smiled. “I have to admit that I prefer plays and boys, even
that Glaen and his insults, to flowers—which I will get plenty of
when I have to return home.”

So the girls parted, Shera to join the
gathering for breakfast, and Rhis for her solitary walk. She
wandered the paths without paying any attention to direction,
moving as slowly as the bees that drifted from blossom to blossom.
The breeze was warm, and carried such delicious scents. She kept
bending to sniff at various flowers, trying to identify which
smells went with which blossoms.

She’d worked her way halfway round the palace
when voices interrupted her solitary walk, and three scribes walked
through an arch with roses twined over it, just as she was
approaching from the other direction.

They all saw one another at the same time.
The three scribes, one of whom was Dandiar, bowed politely. Rhis
smiled and sketched a curtsey in return. Dandiar exchanged some
quick-spoken words with the other two scribes, and then stopped for
Rhis to join him as the others continued on.

“You look like you have a question,” Dandiar
said.

“Well, I do,” Rhis said. “But I didn’t know
my face showed it!”

Dandiar smiled. “Actually, I had a question,
truth to tell.” He looked up, his light brown eyes reminding Rhis
of the color of honey. His gaze was watchful as he said in an easy,
off-hand tone, “It seems we scribes are not to be excluded from the
masquerade. Our reward for working extra duty, you might say.”

“I’m delighted to hear that,” Rhis said
truthfully. Then she realized that Dandiar did not look
particularly delighted. “Do you not wish to attend?”

“It’s a bit of a duty,” Dandiar acknowledged.
“But there are ways to make duty turn to pleasure. I suppose you
already asked or promised someone for the promenade?”

Rhis opened her mouth to deny, remembered
Vors, and sighed. “I was asked. And I accepted.”

She didn’t feel it was appropriate to say
more, but Dandiar, she had learned, was very observant.

“Regrets?” he asked.

She shrugged, knowing it would be impolite to
express her disappointment. She’d actually managed to forget about
Vors. “Oh, well. Though I’d rather have danced it with you,” she
finished truthfully.

“I’m honored.” Dandiar gave her a bow,
smiling. “So, I asked my question. What was yours?”

“I would like to know the names of all these
flowers,” Rhis said. “Not that I’ll probably remember past
tomorrow—or anyway, past a week when I get home again, because we
can’t grow anything like these in Nym.”

Dandiar gave a nod, then bent to whisk a weed
away from a new plant. “Too cold and wet in Nym, right?”

“Yes. Here’s another thing I’m wondering. Why
is it that the prettiest flowers don’t have the prettiest scents?
The nicest scents seem to belong to the smallest blossoms. Or the
plainest. And that wonderful one over there, with the blue and
lavender petals, which I think the prettiest plant in the garden,
smells like moldering grass. Phah!”

Dandiar paused to flick a withered blossom
off a tall stalk of pale pink queenspease. “I don’t know, but I
suspect it’s because the big, bright ones don’t have to compete so
hard for the attention of the bees and butterflies. The little ones
put out the powerful aromas to get their share of attention. A lot
like people,” he added.

“It makes sense,” Rhis said. “As for people,
I think I remember an old ballad about that. Oh, what was it . . .”
She clapped her hands together, trying to jar it loose from her
memory. “Foo! It’s so old—my sister taught it to me when I was
about six—the one about the short, fat princess who gets courted by
every fellow in the world, so she changes gowns with her pretty
maid, to see who is true, and who just wants a crown, and then the
maid falls in love with a prince, and—”

Dandiar said in a quick voice, “I know a
better one.” And he quoted off a poem, a dialogue between a cat and
a dog about who was the most beautiful animal. His voice went high
and squeaky on the cat’s part, low and growly on the dog’s, which
caused Rhis to laugh.

When he was done he did not wait for Rhis to
comment, but said in a thoughtful voice, “What I’ve always wondered
is, why do we find flowers beautiful when they aren’t the least
useful to us? We don’t eat them, we don’t need pollen, and yet no
garden is complete without blooms.”

Rhis said, “Before I started sniffing for
scents, I was trying to decide whether the beauty was all in the
colors, or in the shapes. Amazing, how many shapes the flowers
have, at least I think so. Some like bells, some like stars, some
like puffs. How do we find beauty in them all?”

“Hm,” Dandiar said, hands on hips. “I never
thought of that before.” He looked around with a proprietary air.
“No, I haven’t. Hum! Good question. Here. These lilies, plain
white. It’s their shape that makes them beautiful—that pure curve,
the simplicity.”

“But those angel-puffs, it’s that delicate
color, like the sky just before the sun comes up. Not quite pink,
not quite yellow, nor pale gold. It’s a warm shade,” Rhis
exclaimed. “Yet they look just like my bath-sponge otherwise.”

“Blue starliss is both handsome in shape,
with those petals drooping so symmetrically, and the color,”
Dandiar said, crossing his arms as he looked about.

Rhis also glanced around. Then up. The sky
had clouded again. “I don’t recognize that poem about the dog and
cat,” Rhis said. “Do you know who wrote it? If the poet is in one
of the collections in the library—”

He shook his head. “No, he’s not.” He gave
her a lopsided smile, a blend of humor and wince. “I wouldn’t ever
claim to be a poet.”

“You mean to say
you
composed that
poem?”

He shrugged. “If you read good poetry, it’s
nothing to be proud of. Oh, it’s funny enough, but the truth is,
it’s full of trite phrases just to make out the rhymes, and when I
read real poetry, mine don’t compare well.”

Rhis nodded in sympathy. “I know that
feeling. Before the invitation came, I was writing a ballad and—”
She remembered how she’d gotten stuck trying to describe her
handsome prince, and blushed, even though Dandiar could not know
what her ballad had been about. “Well, in short, writing one is a
lot harder than it seems, and your efforts are much more successful
than mine.”

Dandiar looked away, then down at the blossom
he’d been shredding in his fingers, as if amazed to discover it
there. “Rhis?” he said tentatively.

“
Rhis!”

Shera pelted up the garden paths, skirts
bunched in her fists. When she saw Dandiar she stopped, her face
crimson.

“What’s wrong?” Rhis asked. “Go ahead.”

Shera flung her hands out wide. “I don’t
know—I don’t know what to do—all I could think is, maybe the more
the better. At least, Rhis, can you come with me? Maybe if several
of us are there . . .”

“What happened?”

Shera cast another troubled glance at
Dandiar, who said, “Feel free to speak. I usually hear all the
rumors anyway.” He smiled. “Or would you rather I go away?”

“Oh, I don’t know what to think. I’m so angry
my mind is like a hive of wasps. It’s that Iardith,” Shera said
with loathing. “She
swept
into the library, where those of
us doing the play were all presenting our latest choices, and
said—” Here Shera stuck her nose into the air. “‘You
little
girls
really
ought
to know your literature if you are
venturing out as
wits
. The only
appropriate
play is
The Golden Throne
.’ ‘Little girls,’” Shera repeated very
sourly. She cast a glance at Dandiar, and with an obvious struggle,
suppressed some fairly heated comments, other than a muttered,
“Carithe is almost eighteen.”

Rhis bit her lip, thinking rapidly about
plays. “
The Golden Throne
was written in compliment to Queen
Briath’s family some time back, so it might seem like the proper
choice,” she finally admitted.